SEPTEMBER 19, 2002

The future of electronic inks

The Media Laboratory at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology is one of the world's outstanding "think-tanks" where new ideas are explored and developed. Some of the technologies developed eventually find their way into the world of commerce and one of these will be seen for the first time at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the course of the United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis weekend.

MIT has developed something which it has called "electronic ink" which could revolutionise such things as trackside signage and on-car sponsorship. The huge advantage of "electronic ink" is that the message can change as often or as little as one wants. Thus one can envisage the name on the sidepods of a car being changed, a situation which would enable a team to sell the sponsorship to more than one client. Similarly the material could be used to change the signage beside the track.

The first electronic ink sponsor display system will appear this weekend on Darius Grala's car in the Ferrari Challenge, which supports the US GP.